On October 8, 2021, the Yaya Foundation hosted another installment of our global Scientific Seminar Series. This time, Dr. Vivi Heine presented “Patient iPSC models to study neuronal changes in 4H Syndrome”.  Approximately 40 researchers from the US, Canada, UK, Germany and Poland attended the webinar and participated in a lively discussion.

Dr. Vivi Heine is an associate professor and the head of the stem cell laboratory at VUMC in Amsterdam. Her group uses human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to develop systems that model important aspects of brain development. She described iPSC-based models that are particularly relevant to 4H Leukodystrophy such as cerebellar organoids and neuron-glia co-cultures and the insights that researchers have gained from them.

“That was a great talk and I am super excited to see the things that are going on,” remarked Dr. Joana Osorio in the animated discussion that followed Vivi’s presentation.

We thank Vivi Heine for a great presentation and for sharing her exciting work with us. We also thank all who participated in the seminar and made it a success.

Please feel free to contact us to make suggestions about future seminars or to share your ideas with us. You can reach out to the Yaya Foundation’s Research Director, Valerie Greger, at valerie@yayafoundation4hl.org. You’re also welcome to indicate your interest in 4H Leukodystrophy as a researcher via our Contact page.

We hope to see you at future seminars!